Mobilising Future Careers for South Africa's Youth

Career guidance is a necessity, not a luxury.  That is why we added a new activity - the Career Profiler Screening Test - to the Mobile Career Cafe (MCC).  This test matches careers with the personality and strengths of young people, provides an explanation of the career(s) and also gives other employment options assosciated with a particular career.  Further to this, the youth can see where they can obtain a qualification in pursuit of a particular career and where to apply for bursaries. It's a potential game changer for young people not sure what career to pursue.

As part of Youth Month, Action Volunteers Africa (AVA) rolled out the Career Profiler Test and traveled with their ‘mobile career cafe’ to Mbekweni in Wellington.  Approximately 60 young people, 16-28 years, attended the mobile career cafe sessions. The youth found the career profiler test in particularly insightful, as reflected by one participant, “I learned a new career path that I didn’t know about - ‘Human Resources’. I never thought I was interested in that”. Somila from the Desmond Tutu senior secondary school in Mbekweni, reflected that she “learnt there are many things we can do (to gain work experience) and that can open doors, like volunteering”.  For another youth, Sithenkosi, the major take away from the MCC was “knowing the difference between a job and a career, and how to build a career.  I also learnt about soft and hard skills and how to draft a professional CV”.

The Mobile Career Café encourages and enables collaboration between local organizations.  Mosaic, Mbekweni Youth Centre, NorSA - all local non-profit organisations - and the Department of Social Development partnered to make the events a success. Pumza Jamakela, community development practitioner at Thusong centre in Mbekweni said “the workshops were very informative and helpful, making things clear and giving different perspective on values, career and jobs”. Heidi Hartzenberg from Mosaic Community Developments echoed the sentiments on the value of the workshops, stating it “was amazing and the youngsters really learnt a lot and enjoyed it”.

Your support contributes to the development and growth of the Mobile Career Cafe.  Thank you so much!

Kind regards,

Janine